One product borne out of this new thinking was PepsiCo Nspire, a new innovation kitchen on wheels in US that features an array of its brands to sample and its digital drinks fountain Spire. PepsiCo’s global design team worked in collaboration with industrial designer Karim Rashid to Nspire and provide consumers with a dynamic and contemporary opportunity to engage with the company's brands.

“We’ve build that into our approach to marketing and we’ve trained our marketeers – so that’s had a quite big impact in driving stronger instant recognition of our marketing materials… that’s probably one of the most powerful areas of impact that design has been having on the business recently”.

Personalisation

The more digital our lives become the more we want bespoke messaging and experiences, and this too translated increasingly into design, most notably in packaging. It’s old news that Coca-Cola once again rolled out its personalised packaging campaign ‘Share a Coke’, however it’s a trend that has begun to explode across other brands and sectors as marketers look to live up to consumer expectations.

“Design makes the world a better place. Amongst other things, it helps us make the right choices. So, it seems obvious that by stripping design away from tobacco packaging we are helping consumers to make the right choice; the choice to give up smoking or to never start.”

Meanwhile Jonathan Ford, founding partner and chief creative officer, Pearlfisher, told The Drum that the removal of colour shouldn’t be the main point of discussion, suggesting that legislation for standardised packaging provides an opportunity for design to create real change in people’s perception of smoking.

HSBC and RBS ‘rebrand’

The most underwhelming rebrands of 2015 come from the banking sector in a year that saw HSBC become HSBC UK and RBS… rbs. HSBC decided on the new name following a “comprehensive consultation process”, which precedes the ring-fencing legislation which requires UK banks to split their retail arm into seperate subsidiaries by 2019. However HSBC’s branding and logo is not expected to undergo such an ambitious overhaul and looks set to remain.